Category: Other:

What we have here, is a movie that takes place 1000 years into the future. The phenomena called the sea of decay, a huge forest full of highly toxic plants who breathe out poisonous gasses and which is swarmed with huge insects, has devoured a great part of the earth. What do humans generally do when they face this kind of crisis? Right. Declare war on the insects and on each other. The insects, however, have proved to be unstoppable when attacking with millions at a time. The main character, Nausicaa (hence the title) is against all of this, loves each and every insect and is opposed to killing in any way.

This movie works pretty well. The great thing about this, is that you won’t be able to tell which ones are the real bad guys. Everyone and everything in the movie, except for Nausicaa perhaps, does some evil deeds, however, all of them have very good reasons to do so. Everyone is a victim of each other. This movie portrays it perfectly. It’s great to see Nausicaa trying to calm each and every stakeholder in this.

The movie starts out a quiet, and it takes about fifteen minutes to get into it. From that point, the tension rises by every scene. No scene feels that it’s draggin on too much. About halfway through the movie, the illusion is given that the main "bad guy", if you can call her that, will learn her lessons and stop hurting the insects. By not fulfilling this illusion, the creators just made me more curious about how this crisis was to be solved. I also foun it brilliant that the main power of the bad guys never actually gets used to its fullest powers. You rarely see that these days. I appreciated it.

Anyway, from the middle of the anime, almost all the boundaries of good and bad are shifted, until they’re shattered at the climax. Each and every character develops thoughout this period. Some may not seem so obvious, but if you pay close attention, you may notice it. The climax itself has been brilliantly done, and for a moment, it does seem that all hope is lost. The ending has been done decently, although it feels a bit rushed.

After seeing this movie, I found out that this movie ahs huge religious themes. I can’t help to agree with that statement. After thinking about it, this movie flows with all sorts of Christian and Messiah-like references.

Why you should watch this: If you have the time to watch a good movie, and aren’t bothered by the really old-looking character design, then you definately have to watch this.

Fruits Basket, the concept of a family in which the members turn into an animal of the chinese zodiac when they hug a member of the opposite sex. There isn’t really a story holding this together. Just the main person living her live alongside the family, and meeting different family members. Still this works out pretty well.

The power of Fruits Basket lies in the fact that it’s excellent in creating and developing characters. Each one of the huge cast has something unique and even an extremely well developed story of his/her own. This goes along with the incredible writing talents of the writers, which give birth to some of the most impressive speeches seen in anime.

This show also has a healthy dose of comedy stuffed in it. It works pretty well, mostly in the first thirteen episodes. At the second half the jokes become a bit more forced and repetitive, unfortunately.

One thing that turned me off a bit is that in the second half, some characters are introduced just for the heck of it and to fill up some episodes. It just felt like they had nothing to do with the main characters. I would’ve liked to have seen a bit more of the other ones.

Why you should watch this: if you like heavy drama with lots of very interesting characters, then you should watch this.

I’m watching more anime than just the ones I’m blogging. I will be trying to provide a small review once I finish them. I’ll probably do the same with the anime that I already finished before, although it will take a loooong time for me to do so…

Anyway, what we have here, is a typical fantasy story. It starts out with a decent above-average story, with a few special elements, but it still comes down to girl’s in trouble, main hero tries to save her, evil guy tries to stop them. Then, once the second half of the anime enters, one plot twist entirely changes your view of the entire story. From there on, the anime continues with a truly captivating story, that will surely make you feel along with the characters.

This anime mainly is an action/drama series, with a healthy dose of comedy thrown in. The comedy does really work, especially with the two nosy brothers who keep causing troubles. There is just the problem that this anime also tries to be cute at some moments (for example the blue dog-like creature who gets introduced in the show). This doesn’t work.

Most of the main characters have been developed excellently. You can exactly see why they did what they did, but still you can’t predict them. You’ll even feel with some of the less important characters of the show. I do, unfortunately, have to say that the two characters always travelling along with Orpen can get annoying at times. True, they do have their genious moments, but at some times they only seem like thrown in for comic relief that doesn’t work.

This story certainly has its creative moments. Mostly in the story and comedy department. Especially at the second half of the anime, the story is like nothing I’ve ever seen. Do also not miss the episodes devoted to comedy. I’ll assure you: you’ll have some good laughs.

Why you should watch this anime: if you like fantasy stories, you will definately like Orphen.

P.S. Yes, if you look at the score of this anime, you’ll see that my standards are really low. This is the table to which I’m holding myself:
0…10: A worthless piece of garbage.
10…20: Has no good points, you should never watch this.
20…30: Only watch this if you’re bored.
40…50: Has a lot of flaws, but maybe some good points.
50…60: Decent anime, but still very flawed.
60…70: Average to good anime. I’d recommend it.
70…80: Anime with some extremely good points. I really like these
80…90: These are so awesome, I’d keep on muttering about them.
90…100: These are the anime that make me go crazy. They are the best anime ever, and with very good reasons.
You may ask why I’m saving so much room for the good anime. Well, I want the good anime to have some extra attention they deserve. Some people all rate their favourite anime between 9.0 and 10.0. I’m finding this extremely subjective. When do you know what’s your favourite anime? Is it the one with the 10.0 rating, or the other ten ones with the 10.0 ratings, which may have been 9.0 as well?